Edgar Lawrence Doctorow (January 6, 1931 – July 21, 2015) was an American novelist, editor, and professor, known for his historical fiction. He wrote three volumes of short fiction, a stage drama, and twelve novels, including the award-winning Ragtime (1975), Billy Bathgate (1989), and The March (2005). Like many of his other works, these placed fictional characters in recognizable historical contexts with known historical figures, and used various narrative styles. His stories were recognized for their originality and versatility, and Doctorow was praised for his audacity and imagination."E.L. Doctorow Dies at 84; Literary Time Traveler Stirred Past Into Fiction", The New York Times, July 21, 2015
Several of Doctorow's novels and short stories were adapted into films, including Welcome to Hard Times (1967), starring Henry Fonda; Daniel (1983), starring Timothy Hutton; Billy Bathgate (1991), starring Dustin Hoffman; Jolene (2008), starring Jessica Chastain; and Wakefield (2016), starring Bryan Cranston. The most popular adaptations were the film Ragtime (1981) and its eponymous Broadway musical (1998), which won four Tony Awards.
Doctorow received many awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award three times (for Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, and The March). He was shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker International Prize. At the time of his death, President Barack Obama called him "one of America's greatest novelists"."US novelist EL Doctorow dies at 84", BBC, July 22, 2015
Early life Doctorow was born on January 6, 1931, in the Bronx, the son of Rose (Levine) and David Richard Doctorow, second-generation Americans of Russian Jewish descent who named him after Edgar Allan Poe.Wutz, Michael. "The E.L. Doctorow I Remember", Newsweek, July 22, 2015 His father ran a small music shop.Intersections: E.L. Doctorow on Rhythm and Writing, June 28, 2004. Doctorow attended city public grade schools and the Bronx High School of Science, where he wrote for the school literary magazine, Dynamo, which first published his work. He then enrolled in a journalism class to increase his opportunities to write.American Conversation: E.L. Doctorow , September 25, 2008.
Doctorow attended Kenyon College, where he studied with John Crowe Ransom, acted in college theater productions, and majored in philosophy. He also joined the Middle Kenyon Association and befriended Richard H. Collin. After graduating with honors in 1952, he completed a year of graduate work in English drama at Columbia University before being drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War. In 1954 and 1955, he served as a corporal in the Signal Corps in West Germany."Beloved Historical Fiction Author E.L. Doctorow Dead At 84", Huffington Post, July 21, 2015"E.L. Doctorow, acclaimed author of historical fiction, dies at 84", PBS, July 21, 2015
Back in New York after military service, Doctorow worked as a reader for a motion picture company. Reading so many Westerns inspired his first novel, Welcome to Hard Times. Begun as a parody of western fiction, it evolved into a reclamation of the genre. It was published to positive reviews in 1960, with Wirt Williams of The New York Times calling it "taut and dramatic, exciting and successfully symbolic".Williams, Wirt. "'Welcome to Hard Times'", The New York Times, September 25, 1960
When asked how he decided to become a writer, Doctorow said: "I was a child who read everything I could get my hands on. Eventually, I asked of a story not only what was to happen next, but how is this done? How am I made to live from words on a page? And so I became a writer.""EL Doctorow, author of Ragtime and Billy Bathgate, dies in New York aged 84", The Guardian, U.K., July 22, 2015
Career To support his family, Doctorow spent nine years as a book editor, first at New American Library, working with Ian Fleming and Ayn Rand, among others.
From 1964 to 1969, Doctorow worked under the New American Library as the editor in chief of The Dial Press, a publishing branch of the company. He published writers such as James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Ernest J. Gaines, and William Kennedy, before leaving the company in 1971 to write The Book of Daniel. During this time he published his second novel, Big As Life (1966), which he denied permission to republish in the future.
In 1969, Doctorow left publishing to pursue a writing career. He accepted a position as Visiting Writer at the University of California, Irvine, where he completed The Book of Daniel (1971), a freely fictionalized consideration of the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for giving nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was widely acclaimed, called a "masterpiece" by The Guardian, and said by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in The New York Times to have launched Doctorow into "the first rank of American writers".Review of 'The Book of Daniel', The New York Times, June 7, 1971.
Doctorow's next book, written in his home in New Rochelle, New York, was Ragtime (1975), later named one of the 100 best novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library editorial board."Modern Library: 100 Best Novels". Random House. Retrieved September 5, 2008. His subsequent work includes the award-winning novels World's Fair (1985), Billy Bathgate (1989), and The March (2005), as well as several volumes of essays and short fiction.
Novelist Jay Parini has commended Doctorow's skill at writing fictionalized history in a unique style, "a kind of detached but arresting presentation of history that mingled real characters with fictional ones in ways that became his signature manner"."E.L. Doctorow's gift", CNN, July 22, 2015 In Ragtime, for example, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung share a ride at Coney Island, and Henry Ford meets J. P. Morgan.
Despite the immense research Doctorow did to create stories based on real events and real characters, reviewer John Brooks wrote that they are nevertheless "alive enough never to smell the research in old newspaper files that they must have required". Doctorow demonstrated in most of his novels "that the past is very much alive, but that it's not easily accessed", Parini wrote. "We tell and retell stories, and these stories illuminate our daily lives. He showed us again and again that our past is our present, and that those not willing to grapple with 'what happened' will be condemned to repeat its worst errors."
Doctorow's fiction combines deeply traditional writing with historical exploration. Although he was called a political novelist, Doctorow rejected this label because he did not believe that the language of politics fit into the complexity of fiction. Doctorow called such labels a distraction and the "paradox of his career".
Personal life and death In 1954, Doctorow married fellow Columbia University student Helen Esther Setzer while serving in the U.S. Army in West Germany.Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-critical Sourcebook (1997) by Joel Shatzky and Michael Taub, pp. 54 The couple had three children.
Doctorow also taught at Sarah Lawrence College, the Yale School of Drama, the University of Utah, the University of California, Irvine, and Princeton University. He was the Loretta and Lewis Glucksman Professor of English and American Letters at New York University. In 2001, he donated his papers to NYU's Fales Library. The library's director, Marvin Taylor, called Doctorow "one of the most important American novelists of the 20th century"."From Ragtime to Our Time E.L. Doctorow Donates His Papers to NYU'S Fales Library", New York University, April 19, 2001
In his later years, Doctorow focused on lecturing on his experience of academia and how to construct literature through the lens of historical context. In 2011, he spoke at Saint Francis University about failure and authenticity in his work. In 2012, he spoke at City University of New York about the effectiveness of non-linear narratives.
Doctorow died of lung cancer on July 21, 2015, aged 84, in Manhattan. He is interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Doctorow was a member of the Writers and Artists for Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Israel group. In 1984, he signed a letter protesting German arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Awards and honors 1975: National Book Critics Circle Award for RagtimeRagtime wins the National Book Critics Circle Award. History Channel. Retrieved July 22, 2015. 1986: National Book Award for World's Fair"National Book Awards – 1986". NBF. Retrieved March 26, 2012. 1988: Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement 1989: Edith Wharton Citation of Merit for Fiction 1989 MacDowell Colony Fellowship 1990: National Book Critics Circle Award for Billy Bathgate 1990: PEN/Faulkner Award for Billy Bathgate 1990: William Dean Howells Medal for Billy BathgateThe William Dean Howells Medal . American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved July 22, 2015. 1998: National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities, NEH.gov. Retrieved March 26, 2012. 1998: Helmerich Award from the Tulsa City-County LibraryE.L. Doctorow. Tulsa Library Trust's Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. Retrieved July 22, 2015. 1999: the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature, which is given annually to recognize outstanding achievement in American literature at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival in Rockville, Maryland, where Fitzgerald, his wife, and his daughter are buried. 2002: First recipient of the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement 2005: National Book Critics Circle Award for The March 2006: PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The March 2007: Membership to the American Philosophical Society 2008: St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates 2012: Inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame 2012: PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction2012 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. PEN American Center. Retrieved July 22, 2015. 2013: Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book FoundationJames McBride wins US National Book Award, BBC News, November 21, 2013 2013: American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for FictionGold Medal . American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved July 22, 2015. 2014: Library of Congress Prize for American FictionAlison Flood. "E.L. Doctorow wins Library of Congress prize for American fiction", The Guardian, April 17, 2014. Retrieved December 19, 2014.
Works Novels 1960: Welcome to Hard Times – adapted as the 1967 film Welcome to Hard Times 1966: Big As Life 1971: The Book of Daniel – historical fiction about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg – adapted as the 1983 film Daniel 1975: Ragtime – adapted as the 1981 film Ragtime and the 1998 Broadway musical Ragtime 1980: Loon Lake 1985: World's Fair 1989: Billy Bathgate – adapted as the 1991 film Billy Bathgate 1994: The Waterworks 2000: City of God 2005: The March 2009: Homer & Langley 2014: Andrew's Brain
Short story collections 1984: Lives of the Poets: Six Stories and a Novella 2004: Sweet Land Stories – The New York Times Notable Book 2011: All the Time in the World: New And Selected Stories 2015: Cuentos Completos (Complete Short Stories) – with a "preface" by Eduardo Lago. (Spanish)
Nonfiction 1993: Jack London, Hemingway and the Constitution: Selected Essays, 1977–1992 (published in the UK as Poets and Presidents)"'Jack London, Hemingway and the Constitution'", The New York Times, November 4, 1993 2004: Reporting the Universe. Harvard University Press - text of The William E. Massey Sr. Lecture in American Studies that Doctorow delivered in 2003 2006: Creationists: Selected Essays, 1993–2006 2015: Citizen Doctorow: Notes on Art & Politics (The Nation Essays 1978–2015) — appeared posthumously
Other 1978: Drinks Before Dinner: A Play